Prime Minister Vladimir Putin apparently has a lot to say. In recent weeks, he has taken to Russian newspapers to articulate his policy positions ahead of the March 4 presidential election. Yet it's an entirely new tactic for a man who has traditionally prided himself on his actions rather than his words. So is his latest publishing streak a new pre-election strategy? Experts said that despite Putin's new efforts, his words fall on deaf ears. It began in October, shortly after President Dmitry Medvedev announced he would hand off the Russian presidency to Putin, with an article in the pro-government Izvestia outlining his vision for a Eurasian Union. It was a long-winded treatise, which looked poised to define Russia's future foreign policy course upon Putin's almost guaranteed return to the presidency. But it also marked what now seems to be Putin's newfound interest in the press as a public platform.
Since then, he has steadily taken to the papers to sell his policy ideas and visions for the future. In his latest appearance, in the January 30 edition of the respected business daily Vedomosti, he called for the diversification of Russia's economy away from its traditional oil-and-gas crutch. Last week, he tackled the "ethnic question" in Russia an issue that has long plagued Russian and Soviet leaders alike in an attempt to quash the same dangerous nationalism he has largely helped to fuel. And earlier, he published his main campaign platform, which, his spokesman touted, was "written by hand."
Yet the whole act seems strange for a man who has typically cast himself as one of action and above common politics the commanding entity looming over a pool of technocrats who, unlike the rest, fulfills the promises he makes. This has been perhaps best reflected in the countless staged photo-ops during his tenure as president and, in the last four years, as prime minister, from shirtless fly fishing and polar bear-tranquilizing to piloting flame-dousing helicopters over scorched forests in the hinterlands. Indeed, he has even rarely had to explain himself before his constituency beyond, that is, the typical populist rhetoric that has often colored his statements since his elevation to the national stage.
But experts said Putin's plummeting ratings and the unprecedented protest trend that kicked off after December's allegedly falsified parliamentary vote have changed things irreversibly. Now, according to political analyst Yuri Korgunyuk, Putin has been forced to compete with less favorable footing, and to adopt any means he can to influence the vote in the final stretch which, in this case, means taking the more traditional route of actually arguing his positions.
"He didn't have a need for this earlier, but now he needs to carry on his election campaign with some actual substance," said Korgunyuk, the head of the INDEM Foundation think tank. "Earlier, he could have stepped out onto TV and simply run things on his own terms. But now he somehow has to make himself even more visible to the population."
And in a telling reflection of his attempt to reach out to the masses, his articles have been scattered throughout a variety of more high-brow and authoritative newspapers, including Vedomosti, Izvestia and, more curiously, the traditionally critical Nezavisimaya Gazeta. These moves, some analysts said, were meant to target the very population that is most disenfranchised with Putin: the urban intelligentsia.
But other observers seriously doubt these articles have any significant convincing power. Stanislav Belkovsky, an independent analyst and former Kremlin advisor, noted that Putin's fate had been sealed long ago, and that no amount of written rhetoric could affect protest-minded Russians ahead of the big vote. "Putin has 37 percent support now, but he needs about 52 to 55 percent support for the first round of elections. The difference will be covered by incredible manipulations, and so these articles will not matter," he said. "Everybody knows what to expect from Putin, and if the leader has for 12 years been doing one thing, it would be very strange to expect him to do something to the contrary."
Keywords: Russia, Government, Politics - Russia News - Russia
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin apparently has a lot to say. In recent weeks, he has taken to Russian newspapers to articulate his policy positions ahead of the March 4 presidential election. Yet it's an entirely new tactic for a man who has traditionally prided himself on his actions rather than his words. So is his latest publishing streak a new pre-election strategy? Experts said that despite Putin's new efforts, his words fall on deaf ears.
It began in October, shortly after President Dmitry Medvedev announced he would hand off the Russian presidency to Putin, with an article in the pro-government Izvestia outlining his vision for a Eurasian Union. It was a long-winded treatise, which looked poised to define Russia's future foreign policy course upon Putin's almost guaranteed return to the presidency. But it also marked what now seems to be Putin's newfound interest in the press as a public platform.
Since then, he has steadily taken to the papers to sell his policy ideas and visions for the future. In his latest appearance, in the January 30 edition of the respected business daily Vedomosti, he called for the diversification of Russia's economy away from its traditional oil-and-gas crutch. Last week, he tackled the "ethnic question" in Russia an issue that has long plagued Russian and Soviet leaders alike in an attempt to quash the same dangerous nationalism he has largely helped to fuel. And earlier, he published his main campaign platform, which, his spokesman touted, was "written by hand."
Yet the whole act seems strange for a man who has typically cast himself as one of action and above common politics the commanding entity looming over a pool of technocrats who, unlike the rest, fulfills the promises he makes. This has been perhaps best reflected in the countless staged photo-ops during his tenure as president and, in the last four years, as prime minister, from shirtless fly fishing and polar bear-tranquilizing to piloting flame-dousing helicopters over scorched forests in the hinterlands. Indeed, he has even rarely had to explain himself before his constituency beyond, that is, the typical populist rhetoric that has often colored his statements since his elevation to the national stage.
But experts said Putin's plummeting ratings and the unprecedented protest trend that kicked off after December's allegedly falsified parliamentary vote have changed things irreversibly. Now, according to political analyst Yuri Korgunyuk, Putin has been forced to compete with less favorable footing, and to adopt any means he can to influence the vote in the final stretch which, in this case, means taking the more traditional route of actually arguing his positions.
"He didn't have a need for this earlier, but now he needs to carry on his election campaign with some actual substance," said Korgunyuk, the head of the INDEM Foundation think tank. "Earlier, he could have stepped out onto TV and simply run things on his own terms. But now he somehow has to make himself even more visible to the population."
And in a telling reflection of his attempt to reach out to the masses, his articles have been scattered throughout a variety of more high-brow and authoritative newspapers, including Vedomosti, Izvestia and, more curiously, the traditionally critical Nezavisimaya Gazeta. These moves, some analysts said, were meant to target the very population that is most disenfranchised with Putin: the urban intelligentsia.
But other observers seriously doubt these articles have any significant convincing power. Stanislav Belkovsky, an independent analyst and former Kremlin advisor, noted that Putin's fate had been sealed long ago, and that no amount of written rhetoric could affect protest-minded Russians ahead of the big vote. "Putin has 37 percent support now, but he needs about 52 to 55 percent support for the first round of elections. The difference will be covered by incredible manipulations, and so these articles will not matter," he said. "Everybody knows what to expect from Putin, and if the leader has for 12 years been doing one thing, it would be very strange to expect him to do something to the contrary."